FAIRFIELD — A Vienna man has been charged with assaulting an officer after police say he resisted arrest in a different assault.

Charles Santana

Police said Charles Franklin Santana, 29, head-butted and threatened an officer after being arrested Tuesday night outside the American Lodge in Fairfield.

Officers initially were responding to an unrelated report of a man who had fallen and was unconscious. While police were at the scene, they reported seeing Santana assault a woman outside one of the apartments. He was grabbing and pulling her and yanked a phone out of her hands, said Fairfield Police Chief Tom Gould.

When the officers tried to arrest Santana, who they said appeared drunk, he “became quite violent,” Gould said. Waterville police were called in to provide assistance, and they realized they had papers to serve him.

Santana eventually was placed in a police cruiser, but when a Fairfield officer went over to serve him the papers, Santana head-butted him in the face. The officer was not seriously injured.

On the way to jail, Santana allegedly kept kicking the inside of the cruiser door, took off his seat belt and threatened to kill the officer once he got out of jail.

Santana was charged with assaulting an officer, a Class C felony, as well as assault, criminal threatening, refusing to submit to arrest and criminal mischief, all Class D misdemeanors. He was also charged with failing to wear a seat belt, a civil violation that carries a $70 fine.

Santana was taken to the Somerset County Jail in Madison, where he was being held in lieu of $5,000 cash bail.

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